The Innocents

by David Putnam

  “He kept yelling for his dad to drop the knife and let his mother go. When his dad looked like he was about to stab her again, Blue took the shot. Hit his dad right in the eye. Put him down for good.”

  I lowered the glasses. “Oh my God.”

  I hadn’t known Blue long and never would’ve guessed he carried such a dark shadow like that, not one of that magnitude. I whispered, “What a horrible thing to live with.”

  “I know.”

  Chelsea’s expression showed no emotion. For sure she didn’t talk like any kind of Slowmita or Public Affairs deputy I knew.

  “Jesus,” I said. “Poor Blue. No wonder shooting people doesn’t seem to bother him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was there the other night, Saturday, at the gas station on Imperial off of Mona.”

  “No kidding? You saw him gun one of those guys?”

  She’d just slipped up, said the wrong thing. One wrong word just confirmed all that I suspected. She was not who she said she was.

  With three shot by Blue at the gas station robbery, why would she think I only witnessed the one?

  Unless she’d been briefed, and/or read the reports of the shooting.

  “Yeah, I did see him shoot that kid and wish I hadn’t.” I put the glasses back up to my eyes just in time to see a white van pull a U-turn and park out in front of the Peach address. A large black woman got out and waddled toward the house. Her silken purple muumuu shone bright in the afternoon sun.

  I grabbed up the radio, made sure the channel selector sat on the talk-around frequency, and called in: “25Nora4 to base.”

  Thibodeaux came right back. “Go.”

  “The primary just arrived at the location.”

  “Ten-four. Wait until she drives away and stop her. But don’t stop her close to the location. Do not burn the location.”

  I looked at Chelsea then back at the radio. I keyed the mike. “This is my personal truck. We don’t have any emergency equipment, no red light. How are we supposed to stop her?”

  Chelsea shrugged. She didn’t know either.

  Yeah, thanks for the help.

  Thibodeaux didn’t answer, and I didn’t know if they heard me. I keyed the mike again. “How are we supposed to stop her?”

  This time Blue came back on. “We’re suiting up now. You do whatever you have to do to stop that vehicle. Once you do, give us your location. Out.”

  I started the truck.

  “Well,” Chelsea said, “what are we going to do?”

  “You heard the man, we do whatever we have to. Get ready.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  MINUTES LATER, THE woman came out of the pink house with a rolled-up brown paper grocery bag under her elbow, pinned to her side. She opened the van door and climbed in. The driver’s side dipped under the added strain. She started the van and whipped a U-turn, headed west on Peach.

  I started up, shifted into first, and followed. She made the first left, headed south toward Rosecrans.

  “Talk to me, Bruno. What are you thinking?” Chelsea’s voice, calm and in control.

  “If she runs, we can’t chase her, not in this. We’d violate ten different department policies and vehicle codes.”

  “Okay, and . . . ?”

  “We’re going to get behind her and wait until she gets into some traffic and she stops at a red light. Then we’ll get out, walk up, and throw down on her.”

  “Not good. We’ll be on foot and she’ll be in her car.”

  “I’m open for suggestions. She’s not carrying the dope anymore and only carrying money. There’s a good chance she’ll think—”

  Out in front, she pulled up behind two cars at a fresh red at Rosecrans. No time to discuss it. I shifted to neutral, put on the emergency brake, and bailed out.

  I walked casually up alongside of the van, my gun drawn and held down at my side. I focused at the task at hand and lost track of Chelsea. I made it to the window. The woman missed my approach in her side mirror. She jumped when she saw my gun pointed right at her. I held the badge up for her to see. “Sheriff’s Department. Turn your car off and step out.”

  The red signal changed to green; the cars in front of her started to move. She recovered too quickly from the shock of my appearance, smiled, and hit the door locks. She raised her hand and waved bye with just her fingers.

  Chelsea appeared, standing right in front of the van, gun drawn in a two-handed Weaver stance. She yelled, “Don’t move. Don’t you move.” She pointed her gun at the woman, who now looked scared.

  But she again recovered quickly, put her foot on the gas, and bumped the van forward.

  Chelsea didn’t move her position. She swung her gun up and fired one round in the air. The crack echoed off the windshield and bounced around the neighborhood. She brought the gun back down, the barrel smoking, and aimed it at the woman’s forehead.

  I pulled back my gun and smashed out the driver’s window. The woman screamed, raised her hands, and waved them in front of her face. Little cubes of safety glass covered her dress and arms and hair, their brilliant facets reflecting the sunlight.

  I reached in, turned off the van, took the keys, and opened the door. “We’re not going to hurt you. You’re under arrest. Get out.”

  “Okay, okay. Just don’t shoot me, you chickenshit bastard. Don’t shoot.” She slid out of the seat to the ground. The van rocked.

  Chelsea came around, going for her handcuffs, and escorted her over to the curb. I got in and pulled the van to the side of the road. Chelsea yelled, “Toss me your cuffs. I need two pair to cuff her.”

  I tossed her my cuffs and ran to move my truck out of traffic and over to the curb behind the van. Then I opened my ashtray where I kept loose .38 bullets. I took one and shoved it into my pocket. I walked back to where Chelsea stood over the woman sitting on the curb, cuffed behind her back.

  “This is Ollie Bell, and she doesn’t have any idea why we stopped her.”

  “That’s right, and I want my attorney. You two little shitasses have done gone and shit the bed for sure, this time. I haven’t done nothin’ wrong. I’m gonna own your asses. When my attorney’s done with you, it’s gonna be The Ollie Bell Sheriff’s Department.” She laughed and it came out a cackle.

  Blue and Thibodeaux slid up to the curb in the undercover car, a maroon ’79 Chevy Nova, the brakes smoking. They’d made remarkable time. They got out, dressed in green sheriff windbreakers with body armor underneath. They wore their black Sam Brown holsters with all their gear. Blue just violated Captain Stubbs’ direct order about riding the desk.

  He came over to us. Ollie saw him. “Ah, shit on a Ritz.”

  “Hey, Ollie, how’s it hangin’?” Blue said.

  “I was havin’ myself a good day until your sorry ass showed up.”

  “Don’t be that way. I thought we were friends.”

  “That right? Last time you harassed me like this, you took my nephew off ta prison. He’s doin’ twenty-five ta life. Never gonna see the light a day, not ever again. All his lil’ chillrens will never know their daddy.”

  “That’s real tough. A double murder over dope will do that to a person. I’m only gonna ask you this once, you understand?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I figured it’d be somthin’ like that.”

  “What’s goin’ on back at the pad on Peach?”

  She opened her mouth to speak.

  Blue stepped closer to her, his finger pointed right at her eye. “Don’t you lie to me. You know what happens to people who lie to me.”

  She nodded again, swallowed hard. “Dat’s Mo Mo’s place back there. But you already know dat or I wouldn’t be sittin’ here.”

  “Where’s Mo Mo?”

  “He ain’t there.”

  “I asked you, where’s Mo Mo?”

  “I don’t know. Dat’s the honest ta God’s truth. I swear to you, Blue, I don’t know.”

  “You know the game. You gotta tell me something good if y
ou wanna walk on this.”

  “You ain’t got me on nothin’.”

  Thibodeaux backed out of the passenger side of the van with the brown paper bag. “Looks like close to fifty K here.”

  “What about the money?” Blue asked.

  “Ain’t against the law ta have all dat money.”

  “Dirt, call for a dog to sniff it. There’ll be coke on—”

  She said, “All right. All right.”

  “Where’s Mo Mo?”

  “He’s supposed to be over ta the house later on, ta check on the operation. He thinks the nigga there, Tarkington—Tark, they call him, the boy Mo Mo’s got there slingin’ his cain—Mo Mo thinks he’s on the skim.”

  “When’s he comin’?”

  “I don’t know that for sure. Soon enough, though.”

  Blue waved to us to follow him. We left Ollie sitting on the curb and moved out of earshot down the sidewalk several feet away. Blue said, “We’re going to take down the pad and wait for Mo Mo to show.”

  Thibodeaux clapped his hands. “Hot damn. Now we’re talkin’.”

  Blue ignored him. “This place is tough, though. I’ve heard about it from a couple of different sources. It’s got a birdcage on the inside. You two know what that is?”

  I hated being ignorant in front of this man, but I wasn’t going to risk the safety of the team. “No.”

  Chelsea shook her head.

  “It’s a custom-built cage just inside the door, heavy wrought iron with a gate at the end and a dead bolt. The buyers come into the house and are in the cage when they make the buys. It keeps Mo Mo’s operation from getting ripped by street thugs. It also makes it extremely dangerous for us. So, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to do a Trojan Horse in this van and drive right up into the driveway. Bruno, you and Ollie will go to the door. The rest of us will be in the back of the van waiting. You get inside, get the cage gate open, and we’ll flood in right behind you. Got it?”

  He talked like his plan was some sort of harmless football play in a game with nothing of importance at stake, nothing besides some bumps and bruises from the other team. He didn’t consider Ollie and me there, inside and under the gun. He also didn’t consider taking an arrestee as cover, as a shield, into a highly dangerous situation, yet another huge violation of department policy. If Ollie got hurt, everyone involved would lose their jobs.

  I wanted to ask, Why me? But I knew. My skin matched Ollie’s. And to be fair, if this Tark guy saw Thibodeaux, Chelsea, or even Blue with Ollie, he’d never open the inside gate to the cage.

  “What if we can’t get the inside cage gate open?” I asked. “And you flood in right behind us? We’re all going to be sitting ducks.”

  “Don’t worry about that. You tell Ollie what’s at stake, and she’ll get that gate open. She’s got the gift of gab.”

  Chelsea said, “What are you talking about? What’s at stake?”

  I answered so Blue didn’t bite her head off. “Her life. Ollie doesn’t get the door opened, she’ll get gunned right alongside us.”

  “Oh . . . oh.” Chelsea looked surprised.

  Blue came into my space, close enough for me to feel the warmth of his breath on my chin as he looked at me. “You ready for this, big man?”

  I fought the urge to step back. “You don’t need to worry. I’ll always do what’s expected of me.”

  “Good.” He reached under my shirt and pulled the Smith and Wesson 9mm from my shoulder holster, the one Wicks gave me as a backup. “Think I’ll keep this just in case. I’ll be battin’ cleanup if this thing goes wrong. I’ll need that little bit extra. You know what I mean? You got a problem with that?”

  I did but wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of voicing it, especially not in front of Chelsea.

  When I said nothing, he smiled and said, “Then let’s saddle up, boys and girls, and do this thing.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  OLLIE CLIMBED INTO the driver’s side. I sat on the passenger side. Blue, Thibodeaux, and Chelsea sat flat on the carpet in back, on top of the cubed glass from the broken-out driver’s window. The inside smelled of chemicals from Jeri-curl, body odor, and stale sex.

  My heart rose up in my throat with the excitement of stepping into a confined cage, a trapped target for a known drug dealer to shoot at will.

  I tried to think if I’d ever run into Tark on the street, an important question Blue should’ve asked before shoving me out there like a staked goat. If I had run into Tark, and just didn’t remember, well, he’d probably chuckle at my stupidity as he pulled the trigger and dropped the hammer on my dumb ass. I also couldn’t stop thinking about the secondary threat: What if Ollie gave me up? Shoved over to one side of the cage away from me and yelled, “Shoot him, shoot him! He’s Five-O. He’s Five-O.” Nobody, not even the great and thrill-hungry Ricky Blue, would get there in time to keep me from getting gunned.

  Ollie started up, stuck the van in drive, and shook her head. “Hope nobody saw me sittin’ on the side of the road in them handcuffs with all you all. If they did, they’ll for sure pop a cap in both our asses. Do it ’fore I even get out a ‘Wusup?’”

  From the back, Blue said in a deadpan tone, “Don’t worry, Ollie. Then I’ll have them for murder one. They’ll get a lot more time that way.”

  Thibodeaux laughed.

  Blue smiled.

  Chelsea caught me watching, and she shook her head in disgust at the two mental midgets. But were they actually ignorant? Or had they set this whole thing up as a way to take out a rat amongst them?

  Me.

  Or was this their test to see if I’d play along, dirty me up a little? Or to see if I’d call foul and turn them in?

  Ollie threw her head back and cackled as she drove straight into the intersection at Rosecrans. She horsed the wheel in an abrupt U-turn to head back north, barely missing the other cars also going north. The maneuver knocked around the passengers, who lost their smiles.

  I didn’t like that, not one bit.

  Ollie pulled to the side of the road and pivoted in her seat as best she could with her bulk. “Blue, be a peach and at least gimme a gun to take in wit me.”

  “Not a chance,” Blue said. “You get Bruno. He’s your gun. Bruno won’t let anything happen to you. Will you, Bruno?”

  I said nothing. I reached into my pocket, took out the spare .38 I’d taken from the ashtray in my truck, and flipped it to Chelsea. She caught it. She pulled out her gun, broke open the cylinder, plucked out the expended cartridge, and loaded the live one. She snapped the cylinder shut with a jerk of her wrist and tossed me the empty. I caught it.

  Blue watched the little display and said nothing. Warning shots were strictly forbidden, especially in the manner that Chelsea had done it. I gave her the cartridge in that way to send a message to Blue that we’d already stepped over the edge and dirtied up. The maneuver didn’t seem to make a difference with him.

  I took off my holster and shoved my gun in my front waistband so the crooks in the house could see it. I took my badge on a chain from around my neck and tossed it to Chelsea.

  Blue nodded his approval.

  Ollie took off from the curb, the distance to the house far too short for my liking. She said, “Holy shit on a Ritz.”

  I tried to regulate my breathing so I didn’t hyperventilate.

  Two minutes later, she pulled into the driveway just as planned.

  Chelsea leaned up behind the seat and whispered to me, “Good luck, partner.”

  I hadn’t known her long, but her words warmed my insides, gave me a boost in confidence, and put some steel back in my spine.

  I got out, slamming the door so the folks inside the house didn’t think we were trying to sneak up on them. I tried to keep my knees from quaking, and hoped Chelsea didn’t see the cold fear that gripped my stomach and made me walk a little bowlegged and hunched.

  Ollie knocked on the first door. A muffled voice barely made it out to us. Ollie yelled, “Ope
n the damn door, Tark, ya candyass lil’ pooh-butt.”

  The door buzzed on a solenoid.

  “Shit,” I whispered under my breath. “You didn’t say anything about a solenoid entry.”

  She pulled the door open. “Say what, nigga? What’s that? I know nothin’ about no noid.” She stepped in.

  I took a deep breath and followed.

  Just like Blue described, we stepped into a wrought-iron cage, one big enough to house a couple of tigers in a traveling circus. The door behind us slammed closed with a finality that caused me to give a little jump.

  Trapped.

  The air turned thin and made it even more difficult to breathe.

  We couldn’t get out and no one behind us could get in.

  On the other side of the cage bars, in the living room, stood a shirtless Tark. He wore denim pants, hung halfway down his hips, exposing boxer shorts. A Dodgers ball cap sat on his head, cocked sideways, and the laces to his oversized hundred-dollar basketball shoes hung untied and loose. Black ink tattoos depicted his gang, with a double-barreled shotgun; the bust of a beautiful naked black woman with perfect huge breasts; and a street sign that read “Piru.” In his hand down at his side he held a Tech-9, a poor man’s machine pistol.

  “Wusup, Ollie? Why you back?”

  I stepped close to the bars. “Open this gate.”

  “Who the hell you think you are, nigga? Don’t you step up on me.”

  “He works for Mo Mo,” Ollie said. “Your bag came up short.”

  “Bullshit. I gave you sixty-two-five jus’ like I told Mo Mo when he called. It ain’t my fault you didn’t count it here. I tolt ya to count it here, ya crazy ol’ fat bitch.”

  I looked him in the eye. “I said, open this gate. I’m not gonna ask again.”

  I didn’t know where I found the guts to bluff and bluster.

  Tark looked me in the eye and then at the .38 in my waistband. Behind his eyes, his mind worked the odds.

  “Don’t you raise that gun,” I said. “You might get one or two off, but I’ll pull and drop you where you stand. Now, last time I’m gonna say it: open this damn gate.”